Contents

Moat Crossing

One player of each team paddled across the moat on a raft. Once across, he would tie the rope (which was connected to the raft) off to a post; the second player would then use that rope and the higher, knotted rope to traverse the moat. Once both players were across, they could hit the gong.

Moat Results

Place

Team

Time

1st

Red Jaguars

0:40

2nd

Orange Iguanas

0:50

3rd

Silver Snakes

0:55

4th

Purple Parrots

0:59

Steps of Knowledge

Long ago, in the ancient city of Palmyra, there lived a very rich and very beautiful queen named Zēnobía. Caravans from the East traded silks, ivory and spices in Palmyra; with the wealth of its trade, Zēnobía built powerful armies and conquered Egypt, the home of her beautiful ancestor Cleopatra. The pharaohs who became her subjects sent her fantastic gifts of gold and marble. The Roman Emperor was afraid she was becoming too powerful, so he attacked Palmyra. As the city was crumbling, Zēnobía secretly escaped on a camel, but she was captured by the Romans. Like all defeated leaders, she was brought back as a slave to Rome, but because of her great beauty, the emperor had her bound in golden chains. She lived out her days as a captive in a villa near Rome. The city of Palmyra, without its queen, was abandoned, and soon was buried in the desert sands, but Zēnobía's chains survived.

Steps of Knowledge Results

Question

Answers

Team

Was Zēnobía queen of…?

Palm Beach

Palmyra

Palmetto

Purple Parrots (Correct - 2 steps left)

Is Palmyra today found in…?

Syria

Greece

Egypt

Silver Snakes (Wrong Answer)

Purple Parrots (Correct - 1 step left)

Zēnobía conquered Anatolia. Is Anatolia today called…?

Lebanon

Turkey

Paraguay

Purple Parrots (Wrong Answer)

Red Jaguars (Wrong Answer)

Palmyra became rich because the wealth of the orient was traded there. Did these riches arrive by…?

Caravels

Conestogas

Caravans

Silver Snakes (Wrong Answer)

Purple Parrots (Swept - Advanced to Temple Games)

Which of these valuable goods traded in Palmyra was used by Europeans to preserve food?

Spices

Ivory

Silk

Silver Snakes (Wrong Answer)

Orange Iguanas (Correct - 2 steps left)

Did Zēnobía break away from…?

The Byzantine Empire

The Roman Empire

The Persian Empire

Orange Iguanas (Correct - 1 step left)

Which of these queens did Zēnobía claim as an ancestor?

Roxanne

Cleopatra

Matilda

Silver Snakes (Correct - 2 steps left)

Was the Egyptian leader who sent tribute to Zēnobía…?

The Sultan

The Pharaoh

The Sheikh

Red Jaguars (Wrong Answer)

Orange Iguanas (Wrong Answer)

Palmyra is in the desert and was founded around an oasis. Is an oasis…?

A source of water

An Alpine valley

Another word for "beach"

Orange Iguanas (Correct - Advanced to Temple Games)

Temple Games

The Orange Iguanas are 11-year-old Justin, who likes to play the piano ever since he saw his sister playing it, and 13-year-old Jennifer, who has ten cats. The Purple Parrots are 12-year-old Chad (aka "Chadwick"), who plays baseball, and 11-year-old Tiffany, who dances ballet.

Wrap the Golden Chains (Climbing Wall)

The first game was a race for the boys to climb up the wall in front of them and fasten four golden chains to the clasp at the top of the wall one at a time. At first the boys were both even, but with just under 20 seconds to go, Chadwick dropped his second chain and had to go down to retrieve it; on the other hand, Justin managed to properly fasten two chains instead of one, earning the Orange Iguanas a half Pendant of Life.

Gift of Gold (Bungee Soap Ramp)

The second game pitted the girls against each other to grab golden gifts from the top of a soapy ramp, which they had to scale on their knees with loops on the sides to help them as handholds of sorts. Tiffany kept slipping before she could grab anything, but eventually got just a crown from the top. On the other hand, Jennifer's strategy of only using the loops on one side of the ramp served her well, and she managed to get three pieces of treasure from the top, earning the Orange Iguanas another half Pendant.

Rebuild Palmyra (Pulley Pillar)

The third Temple Game stated that Palmyra would eventually be rebuilt, but the teams only needed to build a column, with the players alternating and placing one ring at a time using the two-person pulley. This game was infamous because the rope connecting the two players would often get caught, stranding both players on a team in the middle, and this did happen to the Purple Parrots for the final third of the game. However, it did not matter much, because Tiffany spent the first half of the game trying to drop the first ring on the pole— she tried to just place in on the pole, but she never managed to; in a last ditch effort, Tiffany tried to toss it on the pole with 27 seconds left, and ended up losing it. A spotter put it back on top of her stack, but then Chadwick had to try placing the first ring on the column and the Purple Parrots, having completely run out of momentum, were both stuck. They lost humiliatingly, having failed to even start while Justin placed the eighth and final ring for the Orange Iguanas' column with three seconds to go, earning them the full Pendant of Life and a shutout victory against the Purple Parrots, 2-0.

Temple Games Results

Team

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Pendants Won

Orange Iguanas

Won

Won

Won

2 Pendants

Purple Parrots

Lost

Lost

Lost

0 Pendants

Temple Run

Jennifer seemed a lot more confident now that she would have made it to the final round, and she volunteered to go first. She immediately hit a Temple Guard in the Cave of Sighs, but continued up into the Room of the Three Gargoyles, then made it across the topmost rooms at a fairly quick pace (well, for a Season 1 contestant, anyway) until she hit Temple Guard #2 in the Treasure Room with 2:09 on the clock. Justin headed in when Jennifer was taken out, and at first, he was even quicker than his partner. However, when he reached the Treasure Room with 1:40 to go, he completely stalled. The door into the Shrine of the Silver Monkey did not open, nor was going through the treasure chest and down into the Bamboo Forest a viable option (of course, it did not help that Kirk was telling him to press an actuator inside the treasure chest, when that was not the case). He tried retreating to the Observatory after hitting the Heart Room actuator, then headed back into the Treasure Room and eventually left for the Observatory once again, with only 1:04 left at this point. Justin finally climbed down into the Heart Room, but then completed the loop— he crawled left, back into the Treasure Room before quickly realizing his mistake, reentering the Heart Room and going down into the Room of Harmonic Convergence, at which point he only had 37 seconds. After a bit more hesitancy, he found the correct switch combination and passed through the Bamboo Forest (though he would have tried to pass through the rock slab in the Wheel Room had Kirk not said anything!), but time ran out right after he found the key in the Tomb of the Ancient Kings, but before he could test it on the doors.

Watch Episode

Trivia

This is the first episode where the Orange Iguanas competed against the Purple Parrots in the Temple Games.

Due to difficulty encountered by previous contestants playing the Bungee Soap Ramp temple game, the following changes were made to this event and remained for the rest of the Season 1:

The bungee cords were lengthened to the point that they would only get taut when the contestants were three straps from the top and two.

More soap would have been previously applied by a spotter at the top of the ramp if a contestant had successfully placed an item at the top or collected an item from the top of the ramp, but this was no longer done.

This was the first episode where a team outright wins all three temple games while their opponents was unable to score.

This episode features the first time where Olmec explains the rooms of his temple in a clockwise order, which he would continue to do for the rest of Season 1 and all of Season 2 before returning to a counterclockwise explanation for Season 3 onward.